I stumbled to my feet. This was the second time in the st few minutes that I’d been exposed to a blinding white light before suddenly awakening again. I couldn’t say it was growing around me.

  The first thing I noticed was my surroundings. Wherever this was, it was most certainly not Flight 227 servicing Los Angeles to New York. I got to my feet in a grassy meadow surrounded by picturesque, rolling hills that seemed to go on for miles. Off in the distance near the horizon, I could make out smoke trails rising from what had to be a vilge of some kind.

  The second was the suns. There were two of them: one the familiar white that I knew and a second, lower, redder one. The temperature felt like a balmy te spring afternoon, so it wasn’t turning this pce into a living hell, but it was pretty clear that Echo had been right. Wherever I was now, I wasn’t on Earth.

  Speaking of which—I turned around, looking in the area around me. Sure enough, there she was. The aura of power that had surrounded her was less oppressive now, though it was still there. She was still wearing the same revealing priestess getup that she’d had earlier, though she was a bit shorter here than she had appeared in the previous space—maybe around five six compared to her towering presence earlier. Unlike the area we’d just been in, her clothing was actually forced to interact with the elements here. A gentle breeze grazed both of us, ruffling the cloth wrapped around her bountiful breasts.

  Echo looked around her with a look of sheer shock—the same kind of look my ex had shown me when she’d realized I wasn’t going to pay bail for her after her third time getting arrested for the same behavior.

  I felt some level of satisfaction at that. She’d been incredibly arrogant just moments before, and knocking her down a few pegs was quite gratifying. Echo also looked even more appealing out here, where certain parts of her body had to deal with the existence of gravity, than she had earlier. That said, everything else was a little shit. I had no idea what was going on because Echo hadn’t seen fit to expin anything past the very basics to me, and there was a strange feeling in the corner of

  my brain.I reached out for it mentally, then stumbled back in shock as lines of text scrolled across my eyes. The same thing had happened earlier, but now that I was in something that was more akin to reality, it took me off guard more.

  Name: Alex

  Level: 1

  Css: Divinity Tamer

  Mana: 25/25

  Skills: [Bind Divinity lv. MAX], [Awaken lv. 0], [Command lv. 0]

  Bound Divinities: 1

  Name of Bound Goddess: [Echo, the Goddess of Chaos]

  Awakened Skills: None

  Mana: 1/1

  It reminded me of the kind of screen that would pop up to describe a character in a video game, or maybe one of the tabletop games I’d liked pying before. This wasn’t some kind of simution, though—no, this was very real. I could make it go away and reappear with a thought.

  “What did you do?” a shrill voice screeched.

  I looked to my newfound companion, half-gring at her as she took in the same things I did. Echo sank to her knees, the bands of fabric protecting her modesty slipping somewhat as she did. The shock had finished processing, and now there was some kind of combination of anger and despair in its pce.

  “I don’t know,” I said evenly. “Why don’t you tell me? You seemed so excited to do that earlier.”

  She turned to face me, and I was briefly struck by the realization that she was beautiful. I mean, that had been obvious from the start, but only against the comparison of reality did I truly see how starkly out of pce she seemed. Her face and figure could have been sculpted out of marble, completely free of blemishes, wrinkles, or anything that could even suggest imperfection.

  Which made the petunt, pissed-off expression all the more strange, perfect features contorting into an attempt at a snarl. I had to admit that if it weren’t for the fact that she was pissed at me, I would have found it kind of cute.

  Okay, I still found it kind of cute, but that was quickly overshadowed by the anger becoming the dominating emotion in that expression. Echo bared her teeth at me and pounced, tackling me.

  She knocked me to the ground with her impact, but surprise was her only advantage. The moment she got on top of me, though, instinct kicked in. Before she pulled me out of this fight, I had been pretty involved at the local BJJ gym, and I’d done my fair share of training.

  The goddess was lighter than me, and though her body was fit, she clearly had never learned how to wrestle. It didn’t take much to reverse our positions, flipping her under me against the grass, my body pinning hers down. I trapped her legs with my own, leveraging my weight on her throat to keep her from moving.

  “Let… go!” she choked out.

  I released the elbow I’d had on her throat, though I didn’t let her go. Her skin was incredibly soft, which was distracting, but it wasn’t enough for me to ignore the fact that she had just tried to jump me.

  Even as I let go of her, she tried to punch me, but I dodged it easily and caught her wrist, knocking that down as well.

  “Hey,” I said. “You’re not going to get anything done trying to fight me. Can you—what the hell are you doing?”

  Echo was mumbling something, her eyes suddenly glowing, but nothing else was happening. I tilted my head in confusion, watching as the light slowly faded away. Her face fell even further than it already had.

  “You should be dead right now,” she hissed. “Your organs should be painting the floor.”

  I sighed. “Yeah, I’m sure. Look, I was hoping you could actually be useful, but I guess picking you was the worst possible option I could have gotten.”

  Also, had she actually just tried to kill me? I wasn’t sure what she’d done, but magic was supposed to exist in this world. If I had to guess based on the text that I’d seen, she was nowhere near her full power right now.My words seemed to spark something other than just directionless, murderous rage in her, as if she’d just remembered what the purpose of sending me here was.

  “You don’t understand,” she said. “This isn’t how it’s supposed to go.”

  “I think I understand just fine,” I replied. “From the sounds of it, you’ve made a lot of people go through this. Maybe it’s time for a taste of your own medicine.”

  Tears welled up in her eyes, but I didn’t feel bad in the slightest. She sniffled in a very un-goddess-like manner, then tried to reassert her serious expression. If nothing else had done it, that broke any bit of fear I might have had of her.

  “Anyway, we’re stuck in this shit together,” I said, exasperated. “When I let go of you, will you promise not to try to hit me again?”

  She nodded slowly, and I let go. Fully expecting another blow, I was surprised to see that she actually let her arms stay where they were.

  Gradually, I shifted my weight off of her, and she got to her feet unsteadily. Despite the force I’d used, she didn’t seem to have bruised anywhere. The only indicator that she’d even gone down was the dirt that had gotten on her clothes and the slight disarray they’d fallen into.

  “Your tits are out,” I informed her politely. “I don’t mind, but I think you might prefer not to walk into a vilge looking like that. You were too busy trying to kill me to notice.”

  Echo looked down, visibly reddening, and adjusted her excuse of an outfit back over her chest. There was still very little left to the imagination with those clothes, but at least she was somewhat decent.

  She flicked a finger, and the dirt that had gotten onto her separated itself from her body and dropped to the ground just like that.

  I gaped at the sight. It shouldn’t have been anything insane given what I had seen up till this point, but that had been magic. Real magic doing something my brain could understand instead of just moving me from one setting to another. I didn’t know why, but that more than anything else cemented the idea of this being a truly different world from my own.

  Strangely, I didn’t feel too weird about it. Maybe that was why she’d selected me in the first pce.

  “You have seen your fill of my body already,” Echo said grumpily, noticing me still staring at her. “Take an interest in something else, mortal.”

  I didn’t bother correcting her.

  Well, it looked like she had some level of magic to her still, though it was definitely on the lower end. When I willed the screens that dispyed information about me to show up, the part that described Echo had changed a bit.

  Mana: 0.8/1

  So it seemed like that minor magic had cost minor mana. That made intuitive sense, at least.

  “Are we good now?” I asked, eyeing her warily. “Going to freak out on me again?”

  “I do not ‘freak out,’” Echo said, crossing her arms. “Yes. I will permit you to continue existing for the time being.”

  “Great,” I sighed. “You want to expin what these messages are? I saw some mention of a system earlier, but you didn’t exactly give me an expnation.”

  Echo brightened at this, gd to have something she was familiar with. “That, mortal, is the Grand System. Us goddesses may affect the world, but the Grand System is what controls it. Through it, mortals may learn magic, skills, and techniques that bind them to our world and eventually bring them as close to divinity as one can be.”

  “With you so far,” I said. “I’m assuming a Css has something to do with that?”“Correct,” Echo said, spreading her hands. “Each living creature has a Css of some kind. These shape the kind of magic and skills you can access, and they ultimately determine what your role in this world will be. Yours, for instance… yours…”

  She trailed off, frowning.

  “Mine?” I asked. If she was able to provide some crity as to what “Divinity Tamer” and the listed skills were supposed to mean, maybe we could actually get somewhere.

  “No, no, no, no,” Echo hissed. “I have seen every css in existence. I am a goddess. Why can’t I see yours?”

  I… somehow suspected there might have been a reason for that. From what the css description seemed to indicate, it was very likely that Divinity, like Echo herself, wasn't meant to see the contents of my css. That did make it a little more inconvenient for me, since I wasn't the one with a ton of experience.

  I tried focusing on the skills the same way I had opened the window in the first pce. One of them opened.

  Skill: [Bind Divinity lv. MAX] - Upon entering a mutual contract or by defeating and subduing a divinity or a user of the divine arts, you may bind them to your soul.

  That really wasn't specific at all. I wasn't sure how mutual the contract had been when Echo had been assigned to be my companion, but given that she seemed to be bound to me, I had to assume the conditions had been met.

  The other two skills refused to open.

  “Hey, whenever you're done having your breakdown,” I said, “two of my skills aren't dispying. They're like grayed out.”

  Echo gathered herself together, apparently not wanting to look like a desperate, clueless girl in front of me. She had already failed at that, of course, but she seemed oblivious enough to think that I still thought highly of her. “They're level zero. When an otherworlder like you first enters this world, their skills have not been properly activated, just like a child learning their first magic for the first time. What is your css, by the by?”

  I wondered briefly if telling her was a bad idea. Then again, she wasn't very physically powerful, and her magic wasn't very strong. If she was opposed to what my css was, maybe she could find a way to break the bond, but I didn't particurly care if this woman was attached to my soul for the time being. Given how useless she seemed to be so far, maybe it would be better if she wasn't.

  And I needed information. I had no idea how this world worked, and she'd made it clear that there was some kind of war going on at all times. I wasn't going to go into that not knowing what any of my magic did.

  “Divinity Tamer,” I said.

  Echo looked at me strangely. “Are you going to tell me?”

  I repeated myself. She continued staring at me.

  “Are you not hearing what I'm saying?” I asked.

  “Are you making fun of me?”

  So she wasn't.

  “I guess I can tell you the skills,” I said. I expined them to her.

  “Your first skill is censored,” she said, frowning. “Your css may be too. Censoring shouldn't affect me… oh. You made me come down here with you. I have the failings of a mortal too.”

  But I couldn't really feel bad about that either.

  Echo sighed. “I suppose I'll have to be with you until I find a way back. Your skills seem to fit that of a typical Summoner or Tamer type css. You'll have to figure out how to make your charges subservient to you, depending on the wording. They’re not easy csses to use. I had hoped that the others would let me add elements of mind control to these csses, but the other goddesses never allowed me to.”

  On the one hand, it was kind of a shame that I wasn't going to be able to force her to be less annoying and more useless. On the other, maybe that was a good thing. The idea of mind control hadn't come to mind, but it seemed like the kind of thing that had the potential to be turned towards evil very quickly.

  “The fortunate news,” she continued, “is that even a basic vilge should contain the materials necessary to weaken skills like that for the first time. It's very common for a farmer to gain this type of css and become an adventurer.”

  I didn't think I had the kind of css that a farmer would have, but given what had happened, I doubted mentioning it would help.

  Besides, going towards the vilge was a sense of direction that we didn't have yet, and I was keen to see what kind of civilization this world had to offer.

  “Then to the vilge?” I suggested.

  “Very well,” Echo said, sounding a little excited. “They will know to worship me there.”

  She led the way.

  As we got closer, however, I realized that the smoke that had been coming from the vilge wasn't from chimneys.

  “That might be a problem,” I said as we crested a hill and got a full view of the vilge not half a mile from us.

  It was under attack.